The union boss for Hamilton's elementary teachers says he's not sure "what the payoff is" in Ontario's recent directive to increase live videoconferencing during COVID-19.

The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario says 97 per cent of its teacher members voted in favour of the three-year deal.

Ontario has reached tentative contract agreements with the unions representing the province's 12,000 French-language teachers and 83,000 elementary teachers.

Ontario's elementary teachers have agreed to salary increases of one per cent a year for three years, but will get higher benefit increases than the government originally sought.

“This has been a very prolonged and difficult bargaining process,” ETFO president Sam Hammond said in a statement. 

Friday was the first time since 1997 that teachers and education workers from all four unions have striked on the same day.

Elementary teachers are planning to protest outside a downtown Toronto hotel today where Ontario's education minister is set to speak.

Elementary teachers are hitting the picket lines en masse in Ontario today in their second province-wide strike to put pressure on the government in contract talks.

Teachers are paid a salary to work 194 days per year, which has resulted in them losing about 0.5 per cent of their salary per strike day so far.

Public elementary teachers are on strike at several Ontario boards today including the largest one, in Toronto.